Tuesday WW Group - Teal and Purple (and Some Pictures of Inigo)

Apparently my Fluevogs caused quite a stir last week! I had many comments on them today, so I have promised to wear a different pair of shoes every week to my Tuesday Weight Watchers Group. Good thing I have the blog to refer to!

I pulled together today's outfit from some of my new Plum purchases:
Yes, I know the tights are more blue than teal, but whatever, I think they go just fine. The cardigan is new - it was 50% off, so $24. It's a nice cotton and spandex blend, so washable (yay!). It's the same brand and similar cut to this green cardi (warning, picture-heavy post) I picked up second hand last year.

The cardigan is a nice basic in a good colour, but my love is for the skirt - it's got pockets!

Plus, it's purple, it's brocade, it's designed and made in Canada - and it was $25, regular $85. Sweet!

Also, check out the nice waist detail:

It criss-crosses in the front - isn't that awesome? You can also see the 3 black sparkly buttons on the side, just above the zip.

The stuff:

These are the shoes I bought for my birthday back in October - only worn them once (here).

Oops, forgot to put my new belt in the photo:

It's the same purple as the skirt, also from Plum, and was $4 (and it's leather).

Because I was wearing a black cami under the cardi, I was going to go with all black or all-silver jewelry, but when I started poking around in my jewelry box, I found this fabulous silver bracelet that L gave me (again, for my birthday, I think):

I quite liked the pops of red in it and the ring. You can also see the 3 black sparkly buttons on the skirt - they're roses! What a cool detail. I love stuff like that.

Cardigan (Kersh), cami (Esprit), skirt (Plum), tights (can't remember), shoes (Me Too), belt (Plum), bracelet (gift from L), ring (gift from Cindy), earrings (over 15 years old).

Inigo has been hanging out on this box lately (it's the one that was full of recycling, which has now been emptied and is sitting on its side):

I love his dear little white paws.

I changed out of my "good" clothes when I got home, and into my "house" clothes. I got this long-sleeved grey tee yesterday in a thrift store for $7.50. I put the cami I had on with the work outfit over top of it, and tossed on my black jeans. I was laughing at Inigo. See why?

Rar! Attack of the monster kitty!

Grey top (Jacob, thrifted), cami (Esprit), jeans (Dish).

I got another shipment of supplies from WW today. Inigo wasted no time in jumping in the box:

Hee!

Out With a Bang! Last Casual Friday

And here we are - I'm done. It feels weird being out of work.

For my last casual Friday, I went over-the-top dressy - 'cause that's the way I roll. To be really outrageous for me, I should have worn pyjama bottoms!

I have never worn this skirt to work:
I have worn it twice before: once for Christmas and most recently for Daisy's birthday party. It's a challenge to wear; I can't take very large steps because the hem (above the bubble trim) is so narrow and it has no stretch, and (warning, TMI) when I go to bathroom, I have to actually unzip and pull it down.

Other than that...jeez, I guess I should wear it more! It's a beautiful skirt. Check out how good it makes my butt look:

Ha! Inigo looks absolutely terrified, doesn't he? He's listening to the beeping of the timer on the camera.

On the top half, I'm wearing this denim jacket (last seen back in January!), a brown silky blouse and Grandma W's pin:

I'm going out for lunch today with my manager, Joanne, and out for dinner/martinis tonight with my former boss at Fairweather, Tammy. Lovely! Now that's the way to end things.

I also sent out "farewell" emails to all of my favourite coworkers, contacts and clients to thank them for being so awesome - I got dozens of responses, and spent a good half hour being quietly teary at my desk. Then I did the tour of the building, saying goodbye to all the people I've known. There's nothing like tearing up in front of your colleagues (I'm such a sap, I cry at everything).

And now...off to drink!

Jacket (Bisou Bisou, consignment), blouse (Mexx), cami (Esprit), skirt (Kensie), shoes (Guess), pin (Grandma W), earrings (gift from L).

Out With a Bang! - Soaked in Yellow

Two days to go...today was my colleague Nick's last day. I worked with him for nearly five years - what a sweetie. I'm going to miss him. He's the creator of the ode to the infamous Yellow Boots, as first seen here.

Of course, I had to wear them today:
This is the second wearing of my brocade shirt (first seen here) and about the kazillionth time with the boots (seen here with links to the other wearings). I haven't worn the skirt in ages because the seam was coming undone in the back and it took me about a year to get around to hand-stitching it back up.

The skirt is "cake" (aka: a neutral basic), and the shirt and boots are "frosting" (aka: punchy accent or special pieces) - I love those terms for it! Steph explains more about that in her awesome post yesterday.

My tights (like my shirt) are bright red, not pink like they look here. Unfortunately, they popped a hole right that I could feel getting bigger and bigger all day. Buh-bye!

The stuff:

Man, I love yellow and red together. Yum!

The baubles:

My cuff that I got almost two years ago (for $3, regular $38.99 - score!) - it's a beautiful thick acrylic and it's nice and small, since most bracelets are huge on me.

Special Extra Bonus! I'm soaked!

I literally had just walked in the door and taken my picture (I took the above pics 10 minutes later). I'm dripping wet. Ah, winter on the West coast. Ya gotta love it.

Shirt (Le Chateau, consignment), skirt (Kensie), boots (Aldo, consignment), earrings (The Cobbler), cuff (thrifted).

Weekend Stuff and Keeping Busy

Whew! I finally feel like I'm a bit caught up on everyone's blogs (if I missed commenting on yours, let me know) that I read regularly. Life has been rather hectic lately, but hey, I've gotta live it, you know?

Friday night, we had dinner at Sherylyn's (she of Yummyland fame), and holy moly, she is an amazing cook! We had feta dip with cucumber and pita to start, roasted chicken breasts stuffed with olives, feta and sun-dried tomatoes, lemon potato wedges and tabouli salad for dinner, and peach crumble with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert. Dee-lish!

The Dan Mangan concert was incredible. It was in a converted church, where we sat in pews. The sound was so amazing, and everyone sang along. We didn't get home until nearly midnight, so it's a miracle I was able to look this awake on Saturday morning:
I knew I was going to be doing the Celebrations portion of the Weight Watchers meeting as part of my mentoring as leader, but I didn't realize the leader was going to have me open and run the first part of the meeting. Hello! Not prepared!

Thank goodness the outfit distracted from the panicked look on my face (I hope!). I soldiered through with aplomb!

This skirt is one of my Dots finds from over a year ago (see here and here - really? Only twice? I thought I'd worn it more than that).

My groovy shoes:
Those tights are actually teal - they always photograph super-hero blue.

Mom's 60s choker:

It's made of sandalwood and amber.

Sweater (Kersh), skirt (no label), shoes (Pink), choker (Mom's, vintage 60s).

I was busy for most of yesterday putting up my Christmas tree. As I have mentioned in the past, I used to work in a year-round Christmas store. I did that for 11 years at the end of the 80s and through the 90s, and I amassed an amazing collection of Christmas ornaments. I usually only put my tree up every other year, though (we do Festivus on alternate years, hee hee), as it feels too much like work, even now, to put up both trees (I do two) and garland, and village, AND nutcrackers (oh yes, I have it all). It's a lot of work and it takes days.

So, when I took my trees down two years ago, I packed up my theme ornaments for the small tree together with the coloured matching ornaments off the big tree, so that this year I could do just one tree. I'll do a few posts of my tree (and my village, which is freaking awesome) closer to Christmas, but consider this a teaser:

Yes, that is the starship Enterprise.

And yes, this is the Millenium Falcon:

And someone helped me decorate:

"I must bite this metal icicle!"

And then he had the nerve to look innocent:

I see your paw on the tree skirt, Inigo. You aren't fooling me.

Casual Friday: Denim and Brocade

Back to my usual funkitude! The last two new-to-me items that I picked up on my shopping trip last weekend at the consignment shop are this top and skirt:
The top is a very bright red (what is up with my reds looking pink? Gah!). I am a sucker for Chinese brocades - I used to have a pair of blue brocade skinny pants once upon a time (I miss them). The shirt fastens by buttoning across the neck and body - and it's made in Canada, which I really like.

The top was sold as a two-piece set with a mini skirt in the same fabric, on sale for $19.50. However, the skirt was a Small and the top is a Medium. The skirt was teeny-weeny-itsy-squeaky-voice small - I couldn't even get it around my thigh. Seriously! But the top is a perfect fit - and go figure, this is a great example of how wacky sizing can be. I have bought XLs at Le Chateau and also XS - you have to just ignore the sizes and buy what fits.

Anyway, I would have bought the top on its own for $19.50, so I didn't mind getting the skirt - I figured I could consign it. My gal wasn't at the consignment shop that day, though (I usually visit her on Sundays), so I took it home...and when the lovely and very petite Kim was over for our party last weekend, I was showing her my recent acquisitions and - light bulb! - oh my gosh, take this skirt off my hands, honey! She was so excited.

I have been in love with long swooshy skirts for many years - I love seeing them come back into style:
Showing my boots off. I kept the shoes simple.

With a long skirt, I always look for an a-line shape like this one, for example - if you wear those long straight skirts that were big in the late 90s, your bottom half risks looking like a big rectangle. A-lines have nice movement when you walk.

This skirt was only $8.50 on the clearance rack! Score! InWear is a pretty expensive brand. I love that it's denim (it makes a nice sail-like sound when I walk) with a bit of stretch - it fits really good in the bum, hee hee.

A close-up of the top:
My "I am not amused" look - 7:30 in the morning is early!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Top (Le Chateau, consignment), skirt (InWear, consignment), boots (Miz Mooz), earrings (Plum), cuff (don't remember).

Hot Pink and Orange

I'm never quite sure how an outfit will translate from my idea until I actually put it on when I get to work. Fortunately, today's worked out all right.

I finally got around to doing some minor sewing (putting buttons back on stuff), so I could wear this cardigan again. Dang thing popped a button off the first time I wore it! I hate that!
Wow, my waist looks small - I like that! The cardi hits perfectly right at the top of the belt.

I liked how these two tops went together - the silk top is hot pinky-purple with orangey-red dragons on it, so it's fun to play with variations of those colours.

The stuff:
Naturally, I had to pull in the grey belt because the pattern of the fabric in the buckle also has red and purple. Then these shoes (dark red with grey piping) worked just right as a nice change from black.

A close-up:

I love those colours!

A note for those of you who have said such kind things about Othello over the past week: we are taking him in tomorrow night for his final trip to the vet. He is ready to go, and although it's hard, we are ready to let him go. I will post tomorrow's outfit in the next few days, but I'm going to take a little break to mourn him.

Cheers,
Sheila

Cardigan (Kersh), brocade top (Lhasa, thrifted), skirt (BB Dakota), shoes (Town Shoes, thrifted), earrings (the Cobbler), belt (Shi Studio).

Colour Matchy Fear - Gone!

I had a little mini-epiphany last night while throwing today's outfit together: I've lost my fear of not being matchy! Example: in the pre-blog days, I would definitely have bought this skirt:
But I would have been stymied by what to wear with it, in a tizzy over finding the right blue to match it, and probably stuck with wearing only black or white (or a matching blue, if I found it) with it. And in fact, the first time I wore this skirt, it was with just plain ol' black.

The horror!

I stood there in the closet, staring at the skirt, and then it struck me: red looks great with blue! And I grabbed the red shoes, then the (different shade of) red top, the lacy nylons and the black cami.

The stuff:

Ah, Fluevogs, how I love thee.

I also felt very daring in mixing up my metals and colours in my accessories:

The brooch is done in copper (and the blues don't match the skirt!), the earrings are actually dark orange, and the ring is a deep blood red.

I felt great in this, but I had a crappy day. It didn't help that I got rained on while walking home. Ah, well...maybe there will be sun tomorrow.

Cardigan (Vero Moda), knit top (Planet), skirt (Ricki's, consignment), nylons (I forget), shoes (Fluevogs), earrings and brooch (Plum), ring (Kenneth Cole).

Low Heels Week - Audrey!

Today's low heels are 1" high...that's about as low as you can go and still have a heel!

I picked up this skirt after work yesterday while I should have been shopping for groceries. I'm such a sucker for pattern in skirts.
Inigo wants out.

Some of yesterday's comments:

Kari: "..in some ways I feel like kitten heels are harder for me to walk in than higher but chunkier heels."

Kristen: "I find them too hard to wear now; the tiny little heel feels less sturdy than a chunkier one that are three inches."

It's what you are used to, I think. It does take a different gait, but the same rule applies: always trust the heel and land heel first. You should always try to do a natural heel-through-toe range of motion, no matter what height your shoes are.

Letting the heel land first, especially when it's a small one (whether that's a stiletto or a kitten heel), can feel shaky at times. It requires strong ankles and good balance. What I do to work on this is go up as high as I can onto my toes when I'm either sock-footed or in runners - hold it for as long as you can, then go back down (but don't let your heel hit the ground). Rise up again, hold it, then back down. It's great for your balance and strengthening ankles (I learned it in aikido).

Give it a try! And give low heels a try. Kitten heels are so retro - and it's good to take a break from wearing heels every day.

Lorena: "it's true you MAY have to stop wearing them or NOT. My grandma is 80 and she CANNOT wear flat shoes.... she wears heels"

The flip side of wearing heels all the time is that you can end up shortening your tendons (your Achilles) at the back of your ankle and legs and end up doing permanent damage to your legs. It's important that you vary your heel heights daily, and also to work at keeping the back of your legs stretched out.

After I do my toe balancing (I do this at stoplights when I'm walking home), I do heel rocking: I rock back on my heels, lifting my toes up as high as I can before I rock back. This is also good for strengthening the muscle down the front of your calf (the one that always gives shin splints).

I also do stretches in bed every morning before I get up: I lift one leg straight up and hold my foot so that my leg is straight...oooh, feel that in the back of the leg! I give myself a quick massage on the back and front of the calf, give my knee a rub to get the circulation going, and massage my hamstring on the back of my thigh - then I do the other leg. It only takes a minute.

Wendy: "I don't feel like myself in low heels."

Yeah, I know what you mean, Wendy. High heels can make you feel kick-ass and powerful! Rar! I'm walkin' with authority here!

When I wear low heels, I actually feel very Audrey Hepburn. She famously had big feet (size 10 or 10.5, slightly bigger than mine) and always wore low heels or flats (she popularized the kitten heel in the 50s). It depends on my mood and how I want to project myself...you know, like when you wear stilettoes vs. combat boots.

Oh, here's the shoes:
You can see the pattern/texture in the skirt really well there - it's a lovely midnight blue with black pattern. That's one of Grandma J's necklaces.

A close-up of the heel:

I like that heel is not too scooped in at the back and is nearly a wedge. These are really sturdy to walk in. Not bad for $10.

Cashmere sweater (Expression, consignment), skirt (Smart Set, consignment), hose (Hue), shoes (Wild Diva), necklace (Coro, 60s? vintage, Grandma J's).

Lazy Monday - Blue Brocade

Well, it's not really a lazy outfit, since I actually had to dig around and find things that went together. Today's outfit features my new skirt and shoes purchased just after Christmas with gift money (hurray for my mother-in-law!):
I got the shoes for $30 (thirty bucks!!) on clearance - they are leather and are trimmed in turquoise.

The skirt has the label cut out - and yet, it's new. This is a sample piece for buyers that may never have gone into production - the label is removed because a few stores in town carry this brand and probably have some sort of exclusive on it. I fell in love with the gorgeous brocade and colours - so rich!

The stuff:
Ooh, the shoes! Ooh, the fabric! It's sort of a blue-black background and the flowers have a lot of green in them along with the predominant teal.

The necklace is vintage. I bought it several years ago, along with a matching bracelet (not worn today), as a reward to myself for getting a new job. The job didn't last. The beads are bakelite. I made the earrings out of the smallest hanging bits off the necklace.

A close-up:
Cool, eh? No idea what era it is.

Sweater (Uniqlo, consignment), camisole (RW & Co.), jacket (Pelican Cove, consignment), skirt (Taylor Brooke by Quantum Apparel, gift), shoes (Pink Studio, gift), earrings/necklace (vintage).

This Red Jacket Reminds Me: I Have a Beef!

I'm having fun putting together outfits from all my new and new-to-me clothes. I got this jacket on the shopping trip with Elaine before Christmas - thrift store, $22.95. The long-sleeved mustard top is also new - $19.99, and a good layering piece.
I narrowly averted disaster today! I had picked out a bluey-green thick knit cardigan to go over this instead of the red jacket, and at the last second this morning, I pulled it out of my knapsack and put the jacket in.

I also stuffed in the knee-highs. Again, whew!

I love these shoes - I've had them for just over 3 years. I love the shape of the wedge and the cool look of them. They were under $20 at Winners.

The stuff:

New woven leather brown belt from Mom, from her trip to Australia - Christmas gift. I love it since I can do it up at any length - thanks, Mom!

A close-up of my domino necklace:

Okay, here's my beef. When I unpacked this jacket this morning, I saw The Stitch on the slit at the back hem of it. I snipped the X thread and undid it. Which you* ALWAYS should do.

I see SO MANY people wearing coats and jackets with that stitch not removed! It is supposed to come out. The manufacturer puts it there so that the slit doesn't open up and crease during shipping. Take it out! Go check your coats and jackets (and skirts) right now!

Also: Take the labels off the cuffs of your new wool and cashmere winter coats! Those are also meant to be removed once they have served their purpose and informed you of the fabric content (which is a "feature" in sales lingo) in the store. And those weird looking skirts whose pleats are stitched down around the hem? Pssst...those stitches are also meant to come out. They help the skirt keep its shape during shipping.

*Of course "you" in my little rant does not refer to any of the wildly fabulous and fashionable women (or men) who may be reading this and would never be caught dead with The Stitch done up.

Jacket (Nine and Company by Nine West, thrifted), top (Mexx), belt (Sussan, gift from Mom), jeans (Esprit), trouser socks (Sox Trot), shoes (Unlisted).

High-Waisted Purple and Red

One thing about the 80s revival that I do love is high-waisted skirts. They make your legs look long, hold your tummy in, make your butt look good and you stand up straight.
This morning when I woke up, I couldn't remember what I had packed - this often occurs, as I am not a morning person. When I saw the purple tights, I was a bit worried, but I'm actually really happy with how they look with the dark red shoes and the purply/pinky/red brocade shirt. This outfit is somewhat similar to the last time I wore it, here.

This skirt is my 80s designer vintage Gianfranco Ferre that I found in Vancouver a couple of years ago. I love that the back comes up higher and has that nice little button detail. Some details about it here.

Pretty stuff!

I like how the pin looked on the front waist of the skirt.

A close-up of the jewelry:

I love purple and red together. It's one of my favourite colour combinations.

Shrug (Debut), shirt (Lhasa, thrifted), skirt (Gianfranco Ferre, from Giorgio Beverly Hills, thrifted), tights (Hue), shoes (Listen Up "Audrey" Fluevogs), bracelet and earrings (Myka Jewelry, gifts from L), pin (The Bay).

The New Skirt (and More Black)

So, there I was going on and on and on about this great skirt...

Check it out!
Ummm...yeah, that's a lot of black.

Okay, how about this?

Woo! That's more like it!

Can you see why I fell in love with this? I adore the colours, the fullness (it has a little crinoline with netting underneath it for extra pouf), the high waist.

I do think I could have done something more colourful with this (I was going to do purple tights, but they are in the wash), and definitely plan to. I haven't worn this jacket since this wardrobe challenge last December. Yikes!

Man, my hair looks awful today. I need a haircut, stat!

The stuff:

My lazy accessories: stinky boots (buckles!), wide belt (buckles!), black/silver ring and earrings.

And one more shot of the skirt's amazing fabric:

*sigh*

Jacket (Raindrops), top (Jacob, consignment), skirt (Le Chateau), belt (Jacob), tights (Hue), boots (eh, some cheapie brand), ring (Le Chateau), earrings (The Cobbler).